THE Nationals need to carefully examine the results of coalition with the Liberals, writes LESLIE WHITE

The Coalition with the Liberals guarantees the Nationals' immediate survival, but also slowly kills them.

The party's voice is stifled, its message blurred and its brand weakened because it cannot deliver on many of its core values.

The Nationals did well at the weekend, but if they had stood alone, their 12 seats could have handed them the balance of power in the House of Representatives.

Handing over a list of demands to a party desperate to win power is a much better position than being thrown the odd scrap by the Libs.

A Coalition with Labor sounds unlikely, but the Liberal Democrats and conservatives coalition is working in Britain, because the two collaborate on common causes and respect each other's differences.

The perceived advantage of the coalition is the lure of power, but it's a mirage.

When the coalition was in government, the Libs ignored the Nationals anyway.

Managed investment schemes were introduced, the single desk for wheat was abolished, the dairy, egg and banana industries were deregulated, import tariffs were abolished while export tariffs remained, semi-automatic firearms were banned, rates of rural students accessing higher education went backwards, rural dental waiting lists ballooned.

This is part of the reason three of the current kingmakers - Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter - left the Nationals.

The Nationals had spoken strongly for rural causes since 2007, but then the election drew near and they sought to hide their differences with the Libs.

Hearing senate leader Barnaby Joyce temper his opposition to MIS and hide his support for a register of foreign agricultural purchases was one of the saddest moments of this campaign.

A proud rural warrior biting his tongue.

A rare moment of resistance came when Nationals Mallee MP John Forrest distanced himself from his own party, slamming leader Warren Truss's lack of opposition to MIS.

In the last WA election, the Nationals stood alone, won the balance of power and formed a new coalition deal brokered on a massive increase in the percentage of government funding to the regions.

The federal Nationals in that state discarded the federal coalition and stood as independents backed by the WA Nationals at the weekend, with Tony Crook pulling off a famous victory to oust sitting Lib Wilson Tuckey.

Crook said there was no point being in coalition with the Libs if rural Australia did not benefit and belted Tuckey out of office.

These are the sorts of acts the Nationals should be famous for, not standing by as its senior coalition partner deregulates agricultural industries and cooks up managed investment schemes.

Even without the balance of power, the Nationals could lead rural policy debate and bring media attention to regional issues with ambitious, targeted policies.

This would force the majors to have their own rural policies.

With the Nationals voice stifled during this campaign, so too was rural policy debate.

And when sitting Nationals retire, the coalition agreement allows the Liberals to challenge, and why vote for a National over a Liberal?

It's the Liberal policies which become law in government anyway.

The Nationals are denied the chance to boost their profile via campaigning in Liberal seats while their ally plots to send them to extinction.

And the Nationals need to work with the Greens.

On a junk food tax to promote Australian farm produce, removing MIS, creating a register of foreign purchases of agricultural land and water, country-of-origin labelling, rural education, health, transport, youth allowance for rural students, carbon-sink forests, halting the piping of rural water to cities, reducing the excessive power supermarkets and multinational companies over farmers and getting better deals for Aussie farmers in trade agreements.

They wouldn't have to pretend to agree on gay marriage as they wouldn't be in a coalition.

But why not cultivate a working relationship with a party which will be immensely powerful?

Standing alone would leave the Nationals free to be the party it should be - a tough uncompromising rural advocate.

  • Leslie White is The Weekly Times national affairs writer